Ana Longoni
Mabel Tapia
Miguel A. Lopez
Fernanda Nogueira
Andre' Mesquita
Jaime Vindel
Fernanda Carvajal
Rafael Garcia
Tamara Diaz
A seismic image of the 1980s in Latin America. This show presents a vision of the tensions between art, politics and activism that took place during the 1980s. Through more than 600 works - photographs, videos and sound recordings to graphic and documentary material, as well as installations and drawings-, the exhibition makes out an image that, though not aiming to be panoramic or representative, does invite to rethink a series of micro-narratives and localised case studies, capable of allowing the viewer to approach a thoroughly unknown period.
Curated by: Red Conceptualismos del Sur
Ana Longoni (Argentina), Mabel Tapia (Argentina), Miguel A. López (Perú),
Fernanda Nogueira (Brasil), André Mesquita (Brasil), Jaime Vindel (España) and
Fernanda Carvajal (Chile).
Coordination Reina Sofia: Rafael García and Tamara Díaz
The exhibition Losing the human form. A seismic image of the 1980s in Latin
America has been organised by Museo Reina Sofía in collaboration with AECID, and
curated by Red Conceptualismos del Sur. This show presents a vision of the tensions
between art, politics and activism that took place during the 1980s in several Latin
American territories. Through more than six hundred works —photographs, videos and
sound recordings to graphic and documentary material, as well as installations and
drawings—, Losing the human form makes out an image that, though not aiming to be
panoramic or representative, does invite to rethink a series of micro-narratives and
localised case studies, capable of allowing the viewer to approach a thoroughly unknown
period.
The show evokes an image of the 1980s in Latin America that establishes a counterpoint
between the effects of violence on bodies and the radical experiments in freedom and
transformation which impugned the repressive order. Stricken bodies / mutant bodies.
Between horror and festivity, the materials gathered show not only the consequences of
mass disappearances and massacres under dictatorial régimes, states of siege and
internal wars, but also various collective urges to devise modes of existing in a permanent
state of revolution.
The exhibition points out the multiple and simultaneous appearance of new ways of
making art and politics in different parts of Latin America in the 1980s. It presents the
results of an ongoing research project, conducted under the auspices of Red
Conceptualismos del Sur, whose first phase has concentrated on certain episodes in the
Southern Cone, Brazil and Peru, with the inclusion of some individual case studies in
Mexico, Colombia and Cuba. The historical period under consideration begins in 1973,
the year of Pinochet’s coup d’état in Chile, and continues up to 1994, when the Zapatista
movement inaugurates a new cycle of protests that relaunches activism at an
international level. The period corresponds to the consolidation of neoliberalism as a new
hegemony, the demise of the real socialisms and the crisis of the traditional left.
The exhibition renders this panorama complex by retrieving experiments which suggested
forms of resistance through fragile supports like serigraphy, performance, video, poetic
action, experimental theatre and participative architecture. These practices can be
grouped into three main areas. The first is visual politics, driven by social movements like
the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and Mujeres por la Vida (‘Women for Life’)
in Chile. The second is acts of sexual disobedience, which include experiences of
transvestism and corporalities that defy the traditional construction of genre. The last is
the underground scene, which used music, partying and the “do-it-yourself” ethic to
construct microcommunities and so make it possible to re-establish the social ties broken
by terror.
All these experiments led to a loss of the human form, tensing and warping the humanist
concept of the subject, and gave rise to new subjectivities that meant a crisis for familiar
modes of existence and a transformation in ways of understanding and engaging in
politics.
Through the exhibition, the spectator will discover the heterogeneity of cases included in
the project. Episodes and experiences that go from the images registered by critical
photojournalism during the Chilean and Argentinean dictatorships to the survival of the
Arete Guasu ritual in an aboriginal community in Paraguay. From the actions of sexual
subversion and performances in underground spaces in countries such as Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, Peru or Mexico to the creative strategies used by the human rights
movements in the Southern Cone when it was time to make visible all people who ended
up missing due to State terrorism. Also, the body is one of the key issues of the
exhibition.
A powerful feature of the show is collectivity, not only in its very conception (and the
involvement of more than 25 researchers) but also in its representation (most authors
worked with or belonged to groups or collectives). One can find political organizations,
such as Madres de Plaza de Mayo and Mujeres por la vida to collectives of artists as
3Nós3, Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis, Taller NN, C.A.Pa.Ta.Co (Colectivo de Arte
Participativo – Tarifa Común), Polvo de Gallina Negra, Gang, CADA, Periférico de
Objetos or artists such as León Ferrari, Néstor Perlonger, Ney Matogrosso, Juan
Dávila, Gianni Mestichelli, Paulo Bruscky, Clemente Padín, Sergio Zevallos, Miguel
Ángel Rojas, etc.
A PROJECT IN COMMON
This exhibition is the result of a research project made by Red Conceptualismos del
Sur, a collective initiative that emerged in 2007 and gathers a group of researchers and
artists dispersed in several Latin American and European areas. It proposes to constitute
as a platform for thought and action, stressing on the contemporary relations between art
and politics. The investigation developed for this show has focused on the Southern Cone
(Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay), Brazil and Peru, including some cases in
Mexico, Colombia and Cuba, as these are part of a similar core of issues and questions.
The researches who participated in the project are David Gutierrez Castañeda, Sylvia
Suárez, William López, Luisa Fernanda Ordóñez, Halim Badawi (members of “Taller
de Historia Crítica del Arte”, Colombia); Emilio Tarazona, Dorota Biczel (Peru); Felipe
Rivas, Francisca García, Paulina Varas (Chile); Lía Colombino (Paraguay); Cora
Gamarnik, Daniela Lucena, Ana Vidal, Fernando Davis (Argentina); Sol Henaro
(Mexico). Roberto Amigo (Argentina) and Rachel Weiss (USA) have been interlocutors
of the project.
On occasion of the exhibition, Museo Reina Sofía is editing a publication that offers a
transversal approach on the show. A glossary, working as a toolbox, agglutinates a series
of concepts that come from both the lexicon coined in the 1980s and the investigation that
originated the exhibition. Also, the catalogue gathers texts by the researchers involved
and includes an index that mentions all artists and collectives present in the show.
Press contact: Concha Iglesias
prensa1@museoreinasofia.es - prensa2@museoreinasofia.es 91 7741005 / 06
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
Santa Isabel, 52 Madrid
Hours: Mon-Sat 10-21, Sun 10-14.30
Admission: 6 euro, 3 concessions